Posted
by
timothy
on Friday October 06, 2000 @04:12AM
from the howdy-y'all dept.

Michael Baumann writes: "Look out Intel, AMD's at it again! Check it out!" According to the usual "Sources close to," "[a] 1.2Ghz Athlon chip should appear sometime near the end of this month." That would mean all my computers have been officially lapped, which is great. Ryan Shrout writes: "It looks like the rumor circulating on the Web recently that AMD would be removing the pins on the socket A CPUs to stop multiplier adjustments via the motherboard may be false. This post at the Athlonmb.com forums (Scroll down to the post by OptiX) states 'the simplest way to put it is that the multiplier lock seems to be part of the chip package rather than the core, and short of a new processor stepping and a complete revision of the processsor interface there's no way the FID pins can be removed, unless the multiplier becomes a purely DIP switch set function, which would defeat the object of the exercise!!'" Secondly, and probably of interest to far more people, this page discusses the expected price drops on AMD chips in the near future, and says that "the official date for the change is Oct. 30th, but [that] many larger distributors will be taking advantage of the lower costs as soon as the 15th." I hope so -- heat up, market, heat up!

The main reason alot people like AMD is because they were considered the underdog
in the processor market. Yes they have a great products at a good price. Now since
that the underdog has almost caught up to intel. What will happen? What new and shiny
product will intel come out with to impresses the public? Well they say that they are
coming out with the 1.4Ghz processor at the end of thier fourth quarter. I do not think
that will be enough to get back on track they are going to need something bigger and
better soon or they will be defeated by AMD.

I think the speed increase continues to impress, at least for me and people like me.

We've seen definite performance increases on all of our uses of the processors: Simulations, for digital signal processing and ASIC chip design. Each time going from the (ancient) Intel P5/MMX to the good old K6 chip towards (dual) Celeron, towards the now current Athlon, we've been welcoming the speed increase each time. Thank the guiding master entity with religous background (for example: God) for the 1Ghz Athlons.

It shaves hours off the simulation time of large designs and a lot of time off the many large test database runs of the signal processing code.

I wonder how the new 1Ghz Thunderbirds arriving soon will compare with the older 800Mhz slot A athlon... Too bad the Thunderbirds don't fit on the Abit KA7, the only Athlon motherboard to work reliable with 1GB RAM.

... Immediately raising the question: "When can we start running the triathlons"?;-))

Everybody seems so pinned on specialty DDR SDRAMs and RDRAMs for speed, but when multiprocessing is discussed, nobody seems to mention that the processors will be sharing the memory bus, basically degrading the specialty RAMs to regular SDRAM... With biathlons, we _should_ be getting twice the DDR SDRAM speed in order to get all of the 200% speed that we hope to get... QDR SDRAM?

All right, similar overlooks have been made in the past... I agree with dual celerons beating single celerons, because the extra celeron costs so little compared to the whole system. But Atlhons are so much more expensive that without the additional RAM bandwidth, the dual socket A motherboards will probably best a better choice for dual Durons than they are for dual Athlons.

btw. the Athlon successor will have 'MAR' added to the name??? -> Marathon;-)

hmmm.. Will these boards be affected as much by different processor "steppings" as of the earlier intel dual-board designs (ppro springs to mind)? I would think with the advanced bus architecture (tm) that this may not be an issue... any thoughts, anyone?

If he so truly believe that the Durons haven't got their pins removed, I suppose he'd be glad to swap mine for one of his?

My processor _has_ it's pins removed. I guess it depends on what you mean with the processor though. I'm talking about that black square piece of plastic with lots of pins underneath it, while I suppose he's talking about the piece of silicon embedded in black plastic...

I have no problems believing that it's next to impossible to modify the silicon, however, the pins underneath is simple to remove and AMD has done this.

The multiplier works something like this; there are a couple of inputs on the silicon that if some of them has current, a certain multiplier is choosed. If another set of wires has current, another multiplier is effective.

The first batch of Duron processors had both the external pins and the little gates closed so it was up to the motherboard to cut the current from those wires that selected the multiplier, with either DIP-switches or from the BIOS.

The second had some of their gates on top of the processor removed, so that one multiplier was always selected. This was pretty easy to override with a pencil.

The third, current, batch AMD has gone one step further and removed the actual pins, so the multiplier bypasses the gates/and/ the pins.

It's possible to solder a wire from the gates onto the motherboard, but that requires a little more precision that I can handle, at least.:)

I've got a AMD 386 DX 40 that except for ~10 hours of down time for moves and kernel upgrades has been running 24x7 for the last 4 years. I've never had problems with AMDs burning out if run with proper cooling. (I also have a K6-3 400, and a 800 Mhz Athlon.)

Ahh memories.
I think I was most impressed by my first upgrade.. 286/12 to Pentium 60.. Now that amazed me..:)
Then Pentium 200, not as amazing, but decent..
Then AMD K6/2 400, that was also impressive.
Nothing really compares to that first jump (understandably). One thing about the impressiveness is that in rememberence, the last time will always seem better. Also, you're not running the latest bloatware to slow sane computers down:) I wouldn't mind a faster machine for game playing and fast compiling. If you really want to make a jump like that seem impressive, run enlightenment and efm, then you'll be complaining about how slow the latest 1.2 GHz is for UI:)

As far as motherboard tech being old, that doesn't really hold for anything but PCI anymore. Memory bandwidth has been progressing at a pretty good rate, (especially with the upcoming DDR SDRAM), AGP has greatly improved possibilities with graphics. And of course the processor interface and chipsets overall have been improved significantly. The only area of motherboard tech to me that is still current, yet outdated is PCI. 33Mhz. bus just isn't what it used to be, especially if you want to put high speed disk controllers and such on it.

First, he's 15. He's doing this just to get a rise out of someone. He doesn't have anything else to do except pick his zits.

He was already moderated down to '-1 Troll', so anyone who makes decisions based on his advice is probably deserving of that fate.

He probably considers it a victory, since he got a rise out of someone and is therefore more likely to continue posting idiotic crap like this. And anyone looking for CPU purchasing advice and reading/. at -1 is so broken they won't be fixed by your post, no matter how erudite it is.

If someone had moderated him up then yeah, sure, point out the fallacy of listening to him, but in this case the moderation system worked.-- Looking for a job [hotjobs.com]

When I made my post, his was still at +2 (karma bonus), and had gotten 4 responses from people who obviously didn't realize he was trolling. So yes, the moderation system worked; whether moderators would have noticed had I not pointed it out is another question.

And I realize he's 15, and really actually enjoy many of his trolls and the responses they provoke. I wasn't trying to attack him, just point out that this time he made IMO a judgement in error, and to let everyone else know that what he said was made up.

My school, Norwich Free Academy in CT, called the 1600 the mile. Everyone from the coach to the lowliest freshman. Yes, I know technically that's not accurate, but in my entire track career I never saw a 1609m race, and the 1600 was sometimes called the mile, but always the start and finish were at the same line. Don't ask me why, I'm just reporting what I've seen.

No, i doubt that, they're getting INCREASED market share from Europe. They're releasing their earnings next week so if you hold their stock, i would guess you should wait until next week if you think it'll be good... shrug, VIA just released their earnings and it was QUADRUPLED expecations. Most Athlon/Duron/Thunderburd use VIA's chipset, so.... I guess you can figure out the rest;-]

You can't beat the price/performance factor. I bought two celeron 333's and have them comfortably running at 500mhz. In benchmarks its equal to two athlon 500s or pIII 500s. Keep in mind this was put together a year ago.

I think this is a classic example of the present situation, we've built computers that run our 1998 applications very well - we haven't got any 2000 applications yet.

How many applications do people actually use that require fast machines? For me it's

Compiling
Quake 3
DVD decoding
MPEG encoding.

Now, of these, compiling is a sliding scale - it's now 3 minutes instead of 5-6, still stops me working though. Quake 3 means I can have more eye-candy turned on. MPEG encoding now goes in 2 hours instead of 4. The only qualitative difference is now I can decode DVD's in real time, with good sound quality.

I'm not moving from a P3 500 until a killer application comes out, and so far it still hasn't got here. Instead I'm buying things like surround sound, TV card, fast video card (eye candy again), decent monitor, hard disk space. I don't have any real requirement for more processor power. The only thing it would help with is compiling and memory is cheaper and more effective.

I suppose if I took up 3d modelling or heavy photoshop work it might be worth while but for running VI it really isn't necessary.

True, but for now, clock-per-clock, the Pentium3 is faster than the Pentium4.

One question to bring to mind, how many chips has Intel cancelled/delayed/recalled over the last two years? When it comes to R&D, it appears that AMD has had the better focus, and Intel repeatedly misses the boat. I, for one, am not happy with some of the released specs about the P4 (new form factor, slot, etc.)

But it does not follow that AMD's 1999 design will be cheaper and faster than Intel's 2001 design in the long run. It probably will be initially (the 1400Mhz models), but once you get into the 2Ghz+ speeds, you don't know and neither do I. AMD could fall on it's ass and so could Intel. Intel says that the Pentium4 is designed to go up to 8Ghz, it would be interesting to see what upper limit AMD has planned for.

Considering that the intention is to get you to upgrade every 18-24 months, you can happily buy a 1Ghz machine right now, and switch brands for the 2Ghz machines in a couple years. (Either way, a new MB, case, RAM, etc is probably inevitable.)

Saying AMD is a better buy right now makes sense. Saying it is always going to be a better buy doesn't.

Hmmm, and when someone steals my Thinkpad, that's IBM's fault, right? You make no sense at all... Once AMD has sold the chip to a reseller or end-user, they don't have a rep at each place keeping watch over every piece of hardware - neither does Intel, IBM, HP, Sun, Dell, Gateway, TI, Motorola, etc....
"...their lack of quality control spawns sinister acts such as this." - that's the biggest piece of nonsense I've heard since OOG last posted (at least he is funny).

So... AMD (or any other company) should have a rep visit every mom-and-pop computer store in the world who sells their products? (not to mention that I also mentioned end-users, but we'll forget about that for now). The big chains aren't usually the ones being overly deceitful, they just charge an appropriately marked up amount on everything. I'll buy CDRs there, but I won't buy the drive to burn them on. I wasn't talking about the big stores - but you knew that, because you work at Comp USA...

This isn't about not standing up for the consumer, it's the practical notion that there are thousands upon thousands of places that sell these products, and are usually a step or two past the original sale. The AMD approved resellers are watched, yes, but when somebody offloads a bunch of Durons to Joe's Donuts and Durons, there's nobody there looking over his shoulder.

The point is, once IBM has sold you a Thinkpad, it's not their responsibility if you leave it at a bus stop. If AMD sells chips to BigCo, and Joe's buys a load Durons off BigCo, it's not AMD's responsibility what happens to those chips. It sucks if you are a dumb consumer who falls for tricks like this, but you can't blame the original manufacturer. I fully support stringing up any retailer who isn't fair with you (large fines, penalties, etc), but blaming AMD for the reseller's behavior is like blaming J&J or Merck when some pharmacist sells drugs that he bought off of the street. Both are illegal practices, are bad for the consumer and munfacturer, but the blame does not reside with the manufacturer.

Hopefully this recall of the P!!! and the Timna announcement, along with that huge hit to their stock price will open some people's eyes - maybe then people will look at things objectively. Intel is still the leader in x86 server hardware, to be sure - until AMD comes out with a stable SMP solution, there really isn't too much of a challenge. AMD has been gaining some mindshare, but they won't be able to approach the success that Intel has traditionally had until they get a 4-way system going and have that backed by a major distributor (read: Dell/Compaq/Gateway). I like AMD, but there are some times when reality still pokes its had in.

A mile is 1760 yards, 1609m
Therefore on a 400m track, it ought to be possible to lap someone who only travels at 3cm/s 4 times.
Note that the ratio of speeds bears no linear relation to the number of times you are lapped.

I hate to break it to you, but the mile is 1609m* not 1600m. Some places do run a 1600m race, but they call it a 1600m. (I'm sitting next to someone who competed in Nebraska High School Track and Field competitions back in the 80s)

www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0172.htm
gives some insight into how to run a mile on an otherwise unmarked 400m track.

HELL YEah I'm happy with my Duron 700@800, its a great chip for the price and runs all my programs/games fine. If all goes well and I save enough money, my next system hopefully in January/February, will be Dual 1.5GHz Tbirds, a good mobo based on the AMD760MP chipset, and 512MB of DDRSDRAM. Time to buy AMD stock people, thier earnings report comes out next Wednesday the 11th. While Intel will not meet earnings AMD will beat them.

The stock price is being manipulated down for 2 main reasons. First is that they are bringing Intel stock down to about 35 (next week) and they needed to bring down the other silicon stocks so as to not scare investors too early and cause a market panic. (INTC has too many shares to let it fall like a brick.) The second is that they want AMD cheap so that they can buy the stock cheap and run up the price. I think it's likely that AMD will go up by 50 to 100 percent in the next couple weeks or so. It'll probably start when earnings come out on the 11th. That'll make the already low PE of 7 even lower until it goes up.

The sad fact about all that is that so many consumers (read: Sheep) are willing to spend an extra couple bucks based solely on Intel's name recognition. In their mind, Computer = Pentium. People would buy a steaming heap of shit if it had the name Pentium on it.

The one who is too timid to even think about getting a real Slashdot account. You know, last night on the IRC meeting, we threw around the idea of ditching Anonymous Coward. Perhaps it's time for you to take responsibility for your flaming.

From what I've heard we will probally have to wait untill early next year for 760MP. Good thing is that all the current chips (even the durons!) will be supported in SMP when the boards become available. What I plan on doing soon is building a descently fast T-bird system (800+ whatever is a good deal) then sometime next year when the SMP boards are out get another processor of the same stepping (but for less since there will be more price cuts by then) and having myself a nice dual system.

Thats kind of silly. Blaming AMD for somthing an unscrupulous vendor does. As long as you buy from reputible vendors you don't have to worry. And If you get fooled into thinking there is such a thing as a "copper duron" you probally arn't well informed enough to be building a system yourself. Call Dell or Gateway, they can fix you up with a nice system (for a not so nice price of course)
-nite

Sorry if it sounded like I was implying that you diddn't know the difference. What I meant is that there are people who would easily be fooled, and those people shouldn't build systems. Its quite amazing the smoked motherboards ive seen from people who know very little about building computer (not that its difficult)

Those same people then come to me with the broken parts and say "help me fix this".

Hmm... People always talk about "CPU Price Wars" but I've never witnessed such a thing. It always seems that AMD sells chips alot faster than Intel's at lower prices than Intel's. Then Intel brings out a faster chip at a ridiculous price without dropping prices at all, and then AMD brings out an equivalent chip at a lower price as well as cutting its prices. Seems like a pretty one-sided war to me.
Of course, Intel used to be on top, but then they were in AMD's position and AMD were struggling to keep up ( actually, they were not keeping up at all;])

Continue to thrive. I am constantly running into
uninformed people who make wild claims about AMD processor incompatibilities and unreliability. That's funny, I have never personally run into a
compatibility or reliability issue with a single
AMD processer in any box of mine or anyone elses I have ever used. It also doesn't matter that AMD chips are currently the top processors for both price and performance now for X86 processing. It's a waste of your breath and your time trying to convince a die hard Intel fan of anything other than what they think they already know.

The AMD 850 seems plenty fast at a couple of hundred $'s. Why would I want to upgrade to a 1.something gHz chip at 3 times the price? Where's the "wow"? Only Win2000 seems to need the extra horsepower.

I've got a 1Ghz thunderbird running with just a heatsink/fan, for about a week. hardware monitor shows processor temp at 47 degrees Celsius. no case fans. another machine is a k6-2 350, heatsink/fan only running since 4/99. last machine is a dual proc PIII-600, heatsink/fans, case fans, case open, laying sideways underneath an A/C duct, still overheats.

With a question like that, it's a little hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or not.:)

Assuming the question is serious, AMD stands for Advanced Micro Devices, who manufacture x86 CPUs in major and increasingly successful competition with Intel. See the AMD website at http://www.amd.com for more information.

Welcome to Linux. You may find the learning curve with it steeper than you expected, but I think the majority of us would feel that it's worth it.

Yes, potentially the Pentium 4 will be a great chip, but the fact that Intel is still more or less tied down to support RDRAM will hurt it for some time to come.

And given that DDR-SDRAM is just about as fast as RDRAM (and probably faster in some cases!), not to mention the fact that DDR-SDRAM will mostly be way cheaper thn RDRAM, I think Athlon-based systems will become more and more popular as alternatives to Intel-based systems.

> All of my AMD CPUs have suffered what the technical community knows as Silicon Burn. Mind you, these are K6-2 and K6-3 CPUS, but all of them have failed due to Silicon Burn.

Ever since the problem with the early-run K6-2's, AMD's chips have been as reliable as Intel's.

The only gotcha is that you have to provide sufficient cooling (just like you do for any chip). It may be that AMD's chips require more cooling than Intel's do, but you're still covered because you can visit their Web site and find out what they recommend for cooling.

FWIW, I've had a K6-III box running 24x7 for the last 18 months, and have not had any problems with it at all. I do have decent fans in my box, though.

Um, if you haven't noticed I *used* to be an insightful member of the/. community. Unfortunatley that community now sucks. I'm trying to blow all my karma on moronic trolls like the one I did above, though I'm not having much success losing all the karma.

Dude, I hadn't noticed. I mean, I remember your name vaguely from back in the day, but it's a bit narcissistic of you to think anyone is going to particularly notice the absence of your unique brand of irreplaceable insight. One particular poster's insightful comments are appreciated by many when they're there, but not missed when they're gone.

On the other hand, as a slashdotter for quite some time now I sympathize with the idea that the quality of debate around here has gone down a steep hill. Of course, when you and I were just coming around to slashdot, there was already the first wave of veterans leaving slashdot with complaints of how the community they used to appreciate was gone, how the new members (that's us!) were just a bunch of oafish ignorant trolling me-too waste-of-space first-posters who just didn't "get it". And yet we found slashdot to be a worthwhile place to offer our views and learn from others'.

So maybe we're right, and slashdot really has gone done the tubes. Or maybe that first generation of members was right, and slashdot was already worthless by the time we got here. Or maybe both groups are wrong: maybe it's not that slashdot's gotten worse, but just that we've gotten bored with it, grown out of it. That happens sometimes. In any case, even if they're "wrong" to derive worth from it (just as perhaps we were when we first started), obviously some people still like slashdot since its popularity continues to increase. Even if all those carpetbaggers are "incorrect" to want to join the slashdot community at a horrible time as this, they have a right to do so, and they have a right to expect that the existing community won't turn against them, take advantage of them, or abuse them.

Specifically, I mean that they have a right to be able to trust that someone who has earned a +1 karma bonus, ostensibly for reliably posting insightful statements, will use his amplified "more equal than others" voice in the community to inform rather than to mislead. By posting this troll at +2 by default, you abused the trust of the slashdot community, especially of those who were too ignorant to know better. The entire idea of the +1 karma bonus system is that those who have earned the bonus are insightful and honest enough to be trusted; you've subverted that assumption as well.

Now, I'm not trying to take away your right to troll. I firmly believe in that right, and indeed I'm finding more and more that I enjoy reading a well-done troll quite a bit more than the ho-hum repitition that constitutes the majority of "insightful" posts. Looking through your recent posts, I find that you've written several worthwhile and funny trolls lately, and have in some cases gotten rewarded for it (although it's a reward you claim not to want). But there are trolls and then there are trolls, and the line between the two is subtle. What I mean to say is that there are good trolls--where the effect is to trick some people not into believing what you say, but into believing that you believe what you say, and thus into humorously wasting their time trying to argue against your ridiculous point. And then there are posts like this--"misleading" might be a better description than "troll"--where the result is that at least some people are tricked into actually believing what you say is actually true. This is the sort of thing that has no place here, especially in a post with an automatic +2. Now, as I said the line is a subtle one, and on some boards this type of post would fall into the "funny troll" category, not the misleading one. But as you must know by now, slashdot is not known for its accurate knowledge of the x86 hardware scene. I'm sure it was inadvertant on your part, but your post had the potential to seriously misinform many readers who would assume it to be true, especially given the personal nature of your made-up anecdotes and your +2 score.

Besides, your stated reason for trolling in the first place is (sorry) pretty fucking lame. You don't feel slashdot is up to your standards anymore? Fine. Look around, find a new more sophisticated site to hang out on (there are plenty, trust me), or a better way to spend your time. (I'm sure there are many many better ways all of us could spend our time, but anyways.) What reason could you possibly have for trying to "blow" all your karma?? It's not like it's useful for anything. It's not like using up all your tokens on expensive snowboarding games when its time to leave the arcade. If I were you I'd keep it around--maybe that auto +2 will come in handy one day when you really want your voice heard on something. It's not like karma goes away over time or anything; it just means that, should you ever stop by slashdot, you'll get moderator access and your bonus. Nothing wrong with that.

Again, if you want to troll, go ahead; in fact, keep it up. But even if you're unhappy with it right now, you are part of the slashdot community, and with the recognition your karma bonus gives you comes responsibility. There are plenty of other options if you want to troll. Don't take your +1 bonus. Post anonymous, or create a new login and identity just for tongue-in-cheek trolling. Yes, your trolls will be seen by a lot fewer people if they don't start at +2, but that's the way the moderation system is designed to work--to give people who don't know any better an idea of what's accurate and what's not. Just because you can take advantage of it doesn't make doing so ok.

www.windrivers.com [windrivers.com] has a nice list of processor prices from PriceWatch.
It's right on the front page, at the lower right, updated frequently.
Includes all the AMD, and Intel processors in current production.

A few things. First, though things like Graphics cards will *possibly* tax the limits of PCI, many things that're currently connected to the PCI bus won't tax it. Take, for an instance, that the 33MHz 32bit PCI bus can transfer data at approx. 132MB/s. Now, even Ultra160 transfers data at 160Mb/s (note the b vs B). The ATA100 clocks in, at most, at 100Mb/s. I don't see the 33MHz 32bit PCI being the bottleneck, do you?

Um, if you haven't noticed I *used* to be an insightful member of the/. community. Unfortunatley that community now sucks. I'm trying to blow all my karma on moronic trolls like the one I did above, though I'm not having much success losing all the karma.

No! Where did you dig that little tidbit from? It's not even relevant to this thread!

"Once AMD has sold the chip to a reseller or end-user, they don't have a rep at each place keeping watch over every piece of hardware"

Well, they should, because I know for a fact that Intel, HP, Epson, Compaq, Creative, 3Com, and Guillemot have reps that visit the CompUSA where I work. There was an IBM rep; that is, until IBM stopped all retail sales. The reps check everything from product placement to storage and display practices, and we've had no incidents at all. Despite what you believe, CompUSA isn't so full of the money grubbing demons as you would prefer to believe. Only the Retail Managers, Hardware Managers, and General Managers are concerned with the bottom line, and rightly so; you wouldn't just idly watch potential profit walk out the door now, would you? As for the rest of us, we're too enveloped in our jobs of getting the customer the hardware and software to meet their needs in the most cost-efficient way. At least that's my work ethic.

AMD has even more problems with selling the Duron: the retail-versus-OEM issue. In the retail version, the multiplier pins are missing, so that turns off the hardcore AMDOCers. The OEM processors are often tampered with by the OEMs themselves, sometimes in a similar fashion to this Duron-burning fiasco. The Retail version of the CPU is held back in performance, while there's absolutely no quality assurance for the OEM version. This is what's known as a lose-lose situation for the consumer.

I'm appalled that you're not standing up for the techie consumer, while I, a representative of a retailer, am doing so. Gee, what's wrong with this picture?

The truth is, I have a total of 4 hours of computer lab time on Thursday (and today, since my AutoCAD professor is out today). Wednesday, I have about 6 hours free because I get home early. And Sunday? I have 8 hours! Couple that with a connection above 20K/sec on average, and that explains my posting. I also keep track of all the replies to my posts.

However, your claims of me being a karma whore are refuted by the fact that I, sometimes, go out on a limb and express my (nearly) unfettered opinion on something. That keeps my karma gain in check. Right now, I'm at 27, and I was at 33 last week. Time to go back up a few.

I have made a vow, though, to check headlines before I post something which isn't a related story to the scoop. For instance, on the Enigma story, I went right to the BBC webpage as I was writing my post so I could get facts straight. When you say that I don't read the articles, you're saying that out of pure spite and jealousy.

199.2F! That's above Intel's original design limit of 180F. Personally, I think that anything in the 130F range is pushing it. I might start getting water blocks for my next system, but that's the kind of guy I am.

It's true. Just count up how many "AMD Rü13z0r5!!! 1Nt3L 5UX0R5!!" posts there are. My theory is that the AMD stories on Slashdot always get the highest troll percentage of all the topics that Slashdot covers.

I think what you're seeing is that on P75 doing simple window manipulation had a small if noticable delay, whereas once you're above 150 mhz most of that lag is not processor limited (eg, ram/disk/IO). The stuff that goes faster was already fast enough that you don't really notice the improvement.

It seems that i386 chip sets are almost at the end of their evolutionary road. Here we have the 1.2 gig chips coming out but the performance of the chips doesn't seem to match the super high clock rates. I remember being amazed when I jumped from a P 75 to a P166 years ago. The totally subjective "feel" of the computer was that of a MUCH faster machine. Not to mention that several animated sites really flew. A recent test going from a AMD k6 400 to an AMD thuderbird 850 was not as impressive. In fact the subjective "feel" was about the same until it came time to play DVD's, or compile code (in windoze, didn't test in BSD or Linux yet).

As chip manufacturers continue to up the clock rates, the returns for the end users diminishes because the rest of the mother board is stuck in 5 or 10 year old technology. Memory bandwidth, FSB architecture and even the operating system all play a large roll how a processor performs. While The technology and clock rates are impressive, until other areas of PC architecture catch up the value to the end user isn't the same as a doubling of the clock rate was 3 years ago.

I think the reason why AMD is now way ahead of Intel in the CPU game is the fact that unlike Intel's Pentium III (which in many ways is still based on the original P6 CPU core pioneered by the Pentium Pro way back in 1995), the Athlon CPU core is a "designed from scratch" core that is capable of being increased in speeds to well beyond 1,000 MHz.

With 128 KB L1 cache, a totally-new FPU unit and now 256 KB of on-die CPU-speed L2 cache, the current "Thunderbird" Athlons will reach 1,400 MHz by the end of this year, matching the speeds of the Pentium 4 when that is released. A 1,400 MHz Athlon on a motherboard running DDR-SDRAM will likely be at least as fast as a Pentium 4 system running RDRAM, but will be substantially cheaper.

All of my AMD CPUs have suffered what the technical community knows as Silicon Burn. Mind you, these are K6-2 and K6-3 CPUS, but all of them have failed due to Silicon Burn. I've heard several reports of the new Thunderbird Athlons failing due to Silicon Burn as well. Personally, the extry 200Mhz isn't worth it to me when I know that the CPU could fail tomorrow. I have had no problems with Intel CPUs, even when overclocked they do not experience Silicon Burn until you have been using them for several years.

LoC-

I really do enjoy most of your trolls--looking through your user info [slashdot.org] it's kind of humorous to see which happen to end up +5 funny (generally the heavyhanded ones) and which 0 troll and -1 flamebait (often the most subtle)--but I think this is a bit irresponsible. Believe it or not, there are many people on Slashdot dumb enough to swallow this. And while you (and I sometimes) might think they deserve to pay an extra $100 for an equivalant CPU, both they and the good folks at AMD would rather legitimately disagree.

Indeed, while I think it's a very disturbing sign of how much corporate power has usurped the 1st Ammendment, there have been companies who have sued posters for knowingly making similar false claims in online public forums--and won. Yes, they shouldn't win, and yes it's very doubtful that AMD would stoop that low, but that doesn't change the fact that you're purposely spreading ignorance and doing a lot of people a great disservice by posting shit like this here.

If you want to troll making fun of public misconceptions of AMD chips, save it for boards like JC's or Ace's or SI, where people actually know something about the CPU market, not Slashdot where the vast majority are completely ignorant on the subject. And think before you post, dude.

No SMP chipset for the Athlon has been released yet. The AMD 760MP chipset, which supports SMP and DDR memory, should be released in late 2000, according to AMD. Motherboards will probably follow soon after.